The Finger on the Wall

[00:00:03] How can Christians stay faithful to God in a culture that doesn't share our beliefs? The ancient Israelites faced the same question when they were exiles in Babylon. Written during that time, the Old Testament book of Daniel addresses the complexities of living faithfully in a pluralistic society. Today, Timothy Keller explores what it looks like to seek the good of the cities and communities God has placed us in, while remembering that our true home is in His coming kingdom.

[00:00:37] We're going to read from Daniel chapter 5. Let me remind you what we're doing these few months before the onslaught of summer. We're looking at the book of Daniel because Daniel is a story, is a set of narratives about what happened when the Jewish people were taken through the Babylonian exile into... Pardon me, please... I saw the glory.

[00:01:09] But I hope I don't see it again. The Jewish exiles were taken out of a country in which there was a set of cultural institutions that supported the biblical God. They were taken into Babylon, which was a pluralistic society in which all of the cultural institutions were committed to the idea that there were many gods, there were many moralities, all equally valid.

[00:01:34] And so the believers had to learn how to function in an unbelieving or in a pluralistic society. And that's really where we are today in Western society. And we learn a great deal about, from the book of Daniel, about what it means to function in such a situation. Now, we've seen Daniel in his younger years, in Daniel 1 and 2. But this story, this narrative, brings us to a place when Daniel was very old and he is now serving under a very different king.

[00:02:04] This is Daniel chapter 5, verses 1 to 6 and verses 17 to 31.

[00:02:25] So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem. And the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.

[00:02:49] Suddenly, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. Now, just a bit later. Then Daniel answered the king, you may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and I will tell him what it means.

[00:03:15] O king, the most high God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death. Those he wanted to spare, he spared. Those he wanted to promote, he promoted. Those he wanted to humble, he humbled. But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal.

[00:03:45] He lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle. And his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he acknowledged that the most high God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. But you, his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you. And you and his nobles, your wives and your concubines, drank wine from them.

[00:04:13] You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore, he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. This is the inscription that was written. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parson. This is what these words mean. Mene, God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

[00:04:43] Paris, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. And then at Belshazzar's command, Dana was clothed in purple. A gold chain was placed around his neck and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain. And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62. And this is God's word. Now, if you take a look at this story, a fascinating story.

[00:05:13] You know, it's amazing how many of the stories of Daniel have actually got features that have passed into our language. Like Daniel chapter 2 is where we get the very term feet of clay. Where did you get that idea? Feet of clay. What's that mean? It's from the great golden image that had feet of clay in Daniel 2. And here we have the source of another phrase that has come right into our English language. The handwriting on the wall. And there's really three parts of the narrative. It's very simple to see. The first part has to deal with this wild party.

[00:05:42] The second part has to do with this great party crasher, Daniel. You might call it the party crasher of all party crashers, Daniel. And then lastly, we have to look at the fingers of God and what they wrote. So let's look at the party. Let's look at the party crasher and look at the fingers of God and the writing on the wall. First of all, the party. The party tells us the deep need we have for significance.

[00:06:10] So this party is a big party and it has all the nobles and all the ruling class of Babylon together. But there's a lot of evidence that this is a very unusual party. It's an unusually frenetic party. First of all, the first thing we see here, notice, is... And this is very unusual. It wouldn't strike you the first time you read it. You say, oh yeah, paganism. And you remember Cecil B. DeMille and you remember Hollywood and the parties that you always saw there.

[00:06:33] But the fact that Nebuchadnezzar brings in his concubines, just bringing his wives in, his harem, his wives would have been one thing. To bring in your wives and concubines in with your nobles was not protocol at all. It was very, very wild, you might say. And basically what we have here is a deliberate effort on his part to create a setting of sensuality and pleasure.

[00:06:57] Secondly, he calls for the gold and silver goblets that were the booty, as it was, the plunder from the temple of Jerusalem, which, of course, Nebuchadnezzar, 22 years before. Nebuchadnezzar, by the way, has been dead 22 years at this point. And Belshazzar is about the fourth in line, by the way, from Nebuchadnezzar. You have to remember when they call somebody your father, just like Elisha called Elijah your father. It means your illustrious predecessor. But that was a great triumph. And in they bring the gold and silver goblets. Why?

[00:07:27] It's a way of remembering. It's a way of deliberately talking about the greatness and the might of our empire. We are superior. We are greater than anyone else. We have all these conquests. Then thirdly, the third thing, though, is they don't just bring in the silver and gold goblets, but they drink from them. They drink wine and they toast their own gods. The goblets of the temple of God, they're toasting their own gods. Now, that was a deliberate act of spiritual defiance.

[00:07:54] Because under Nebuchadnezzar, the religion of Israel had made great inroads. I'm pretty sure Belshazzar knew what he was doing, but it was a way of, it was a particular act of spiritual defiance. He was saying, we're going to drink from the goddess of this god and toast our own gods. What was all this about? Why the freneticness of it? You see, it's sensually frenetic. It's spiritually frenetic. What's going on?

[00:08:22] The thing that you wouldn't know unless you know history, what history tells us is this. What actually was happening was there was a huge shadow over all of Babylon and over Belshazzar in particular. Only a week before, somewhere between a week and ten days before, a man named Cyrus the Persian had brought the Medo-Persian Empire, had brought the great army down and had just defeated only 50 miles from Babylonia.

[00:08:49] 50 miles from Babylon, had defeated the Babylonian army decisively, which meant Babylon was now completely defenseless. And everyone in the capital was in an amazing tizzy. Because on the one hand, what would happen? Would the Medes and the Persians march into Babylon, raise the city to the ground, or maybe just capture it and destroy all of the king and the nobles? Or would they just send a diplomatic mission? And would everybody stay in power, but have become a vassal state to the Medo-Persian Empire? Nobody knew.

[00:09:20] Everybody was scared. Nobody knew what was going on. And in that situation, Belshazzar throws his party. You've got to really know that or the party doesn't make sense. Now, you know, commentators have speculated about it. Why this incredible, wild, bacchanalian romp? At a time like this, well, some people have said it's just denial. It's just a way of dealing with his fear. Some have said, oh, no, no, no, it's very politic.

[00:09:46] How do you make sure your nobles don't depose you immediately and sort of wait for Cyrus to show up? But actually, here's the main point. And, you know, some people have said it's just macho. It's a way of saying, I've always lived like a king, and I'm going to live like a king. And no upstart, no, God is going to stop me.

[00:10:03] But the main point is, the closer death gets, the more frantic, the rolling in the sensual pleasure, the reveling in the silver and the gold, and the religious frenzy, the toasting of the gods. You got those three things? The closer death gets, the closer the cloud gets, the more rolling in sensual pleasure, the more reveling in silver and gold and wealth, and the more religiously frenetic everything gets.

[00:10:32] Now, that's quite a picture. And, you know, the people who know best at what's going on here are not very often Christian writers. In fact, as I was studying this and trying to understand what was happening here, it was the secular writers. It's modern secular writers, some of whom, in their own beliefs, are personally agnostic, who understand what's going on. A man that I often quote, but today I want to actually use him extensively over the next five minutes to try to show you there's nobody who explains this feast, this party,

[00:11:00] better than the Pulitzer Prize winner Ernest Becker. You often hear me quote him. He wrote a book in 1973 called The Denial of Death. But I want to just show you that actually he doesn't only, his book doesn't just help us. He was agnostic, and he died virtually the same year the book came out. But he understands this. Here's what Becker says. I'm going to read you some sections, but I want to show you. He understands even the features of this banquet.

[00:11:26] First of all, what Becker says is human beings cannot live in full honest awareness of the meaning of death. Human beings cannot live in full honest awareness of the meaning of death. Let me say this carefully. If our death is personal extinction, so that when we die there's no continuance, there's nothing that survives, there's nothing that goes on.

[00:11:51] And if the sun's death is civilization extinction, so that when the sun dies, even all the years of civilization will be just insignificant in relationship to the oceans of dead time before and it come after, so that nobody will even be around to remember anything that was done, if death is the end, here's what Becker says, nobody, nobody can live like that.

[00:12:20] Nobody can live in the face of it. Nobody can live honestly. Here's why. Because if death is it, if our death is personal extinction and the sun's death is the end of civilization, Ernest Becker says, there is no reasonable difference for choosing X over Y or A over B. You understand? Nobody can say this is better than this. Nobody can say it's better to kiss somebody than strike somebody because in the end there's no difference. No difference. Nothing has meaning. Nothing matters.

[00:12:51] Everything is ephemeral. Everything is passing away. And Becker says not only is that the case, but human beings have three ways of dealing with that. And they're the same three things we see at the feast. Let me just read you a couple things. First of all, Becker says this, and this is what I just mentioned. Becker says, and by the way, I'm going to apologize right off the bat for the lack of gender-neutral language. He did write this in 1973. Okay? He says,

[00:13:17] Every culture is in its most essential intent a way to heroically deny our creatureliness, to deny death. We need to feel heroic. We need to know our life matters in the grand scheme of things. We need to know that there's some higher meaning. Now, you see what he says? He says, Culture. He says, The purpose of every culture is to help us stave off the sense that we are utterly insignificant, absolutely forgettable, and completely insubstantial. He says,

[00:13:47] That's the purpose of culture. No human being can possibly live really knowing that when we die, that's it. When the sun dies, that's really it. Nobody can live like that. Because if that's true, then any discussion that this is more important than this, or this matters, or this matters, or anything matters, he says, it's gone. He says, So culture, every culture has one main job, to stave off that sense of insignificance, to stave off the sense that we are nothing but phantoms, that we are nothing but waves on the sand,

[00:14:16] footprints in the sand where the beach is, where the water's coming, that we're nothing but smoke and dust. And we have to stave that off. And he says, Every culture does that. Everybody has to find some way of doing that. And there's three ways we do it. The first way he calls the romantic solution. The romantic solution. The wives and the concubines. And here's what he says. He says, The closer we get to a sense, you know, how are we going to deal with our sense of insignificance? Well, he says, Modern man fixes his need for cosmic heroism

[00:14:45] onto another person in the romantic solution. In the form of a love object. The self-glorification. Now notice how he's using that term. He doesn't use glorification the way you and I tend. Glory means weight. Glory means substance. In other words, he says, How am I going to know I'm there? How am I going to know I'm not a dream? How am I going to know I'm not a phantom? How do I know I'm not a wave on a sand? He says, The self-glorification in the romantic solution fulfills our innermost need

[00:15:14] by looking at the love partner. Romance becomes the divine ideal within which I fulfill my life. Salvation itself is found in the other. Now if you don't want to admit how deified romantic love is in our culture, just listen to pop songs. They are filled with references to stars, angels, heaven, divinity. But this is not new. As an old Hindu song puts it, My lover is like God. If she accepts me, my existence is utilized.

[00:15:43] But here's the problem with the romantic option. How can any human being be a god like everything to another? So one of the ways we stave off the insignificance is we find somebody who loves us. He says that's a romantic solution, but how could anyone be a god like everything to another? But he says that's not all, and there's a second approach. Some people don't do that or some people give up on it. And the second approach he calls the creative solution. Not the romantic solution, not the wives and the concubines, the gold and the silver,

[00:16:13] the power. And he says here's the creative solution. You separate yourself out of the herd. Your creative work is the way to earn immortality as a result of your own unique gifts. Your uniqueness is what makes you different from others. That's what gives you a sense of being substantial. But you see the immense problem that this poses. How can anyone justify himself? Who are you to say that this is good or better than what someone else has done?

[00:16:43] The achiever's work is an effort to justify himself, but you're still a creature, and you will feel more intensely than anyone else, the creative person, that you and your work is ephemeral. It's bad. It's potentially meaningless unless it's justified from outside yourself and from outside itself. You have no right to justify yourself. So he says the second thing people do is we achieve. If we don't try to do the romantic approach, the family approach, the sexual approach, what do we do? Is we try to achieve. We try to, you know, we're going to be different than others.

[00:17:13] We're going to stay out from the herd. And because we're different and because we're unique and because we do things that nobody else does and because we're special, that makes me feel substantial. But he says, who are you? Who are you to say that you're better than anybody else at all? Who are you to say? He actually says, who are you to bring new meanings into the culture? He's talking especially to artists who say, well, I'm special because I've done something very interesting. He's very interesting. He says, who are you to bring new meanings into the culture and say everybody ought to notice that?

[00:17:42] But then there's a third solution and the most obvious solution. What are you going to deal with is sense of being insignificant. One is the romantic. See? The wise and the concubines. One is the creative. Conquest. Silver and gold. But the third is religion. Right? Toasting the gods. And you see, you would think, well, that's the most obvious one, right? And maybe you even think I'm going to say, well, that's the right one. But you see,

[00:18:12] it's the most obvious way. And over the years, it's the way most people have overcome the sense of insignificance. It's what they posit, a God. They find out what God's will is and then they do it. And they say, I am good. I am right. I'm going to last. I'm going to last because I'm a good person, because I'm a righteous person. But you know what? In the introduction to book, Ernest Brecker's book, The Denial of Death, he says something which shows me

[00:18:41] why he didn't pick that up, that solution up, and why so many other people in the modern world don't. And this is what he says. How easily religious people will shed blood to purchase assurance of their own righteousness. Our need to deny our nakedness and be arrayed in glory keeps us from acknowledging that our emperors have no clothes. What's he talking about here? He's talking about something we have to see, we have to recognize. The religious people in an effort to say, I will last, I am righteous,

[00:19:12] need to oppress people. And they do oppress people. And so here, where are we? What have we gotten to? What a picture. The closer death comes, the more frantic everybody gets into the romantic solution or the creative solution or the religious solution. But in the end, it's falling apart. In fact, Becker even says something about parties that's pretty amazing. And think about it in terms of Daniel 5. He finally says, this is the last quote from him, okay? Modern man

[00:19:41] is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness or spending time shopping, which is the same thing. As his need, listen, as modern man's need for heroic dedication is provided less and less by a culture that disbelieves in any moral, spiritual, or social heroism, that same society finds ways to contrive him to forget, to contrive to help him forget. So here's what you have. Picture of the modern world. Picture of a pluralistic society. We're deeply aware

[00:20:11] of our insignificance and we have frantically locked ourselves into either the romantic solution, the creative solution, the religious solution, or else we go back and forth or we're trying them all at once or we hate that one and we go to this one. But in the end, we've got to shop or drink or do something to stave off the sense of our utter failure. In other words, this is teaching us without God's glory, we have no glory. Without God, we don't exist.

[00:20:41] And we know that and that's really at the root of all society, that's the root of all character and it's at the heart of every culture. So the wild party shows us this desperate sense of significance and our failure to find it. Secondly, the second thing we have though is the great party crasher. Now what happens is the hand writing on the wall and of course Belshazzar is very upset and when it says his knees knocked

[00:21:11] and his legs gave way, it must have means he collapsed. And the first thing he does in verses seven to nine and I haven't shown you that, the first thing we didn't print it in there, the first thing that he does is that he calls in the enchanters and the diviners and the astrologers and he says to them, I will clothe you in purple, I will put a gold chain on your neck and I will make you the third highest ruler in the kingdom if you can interpret the words. But we're told two things,

[00:21:41] one is they couldn't decipher what the words meant, they couldn't even decipher the words nor tell them what they meant. But finally they bring Daniel in and as you can see from what Daniel says, he is sort of the ultimate party pooper here, what he says is he indicts Belshazzar. But if you look carefully, he brings up a comparison between Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar, his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar who had repented and had actually either was converted or at least

[00:22:10] certainly supported belief and faith in the God of Israel. And if you look at his indictment, Daniel actually tells us three important lessons for how you can find significance. See, if the party tells us that we have this deep need for it, it's Daniel who comes and gives us three extremely important lessons on how we can find significance in God. And these three lessons are extremely important not only for finding God the first time but actually for going deeper into God and here's what the three are.

[00:22:40] Let's look at them. First of all, verse 17. The first lesson is trust God's word. How would your life change if you no longer had to prove yourself to anyone? We often live as though our value depends on our accomplishments, the opinions of others, or whether we're meeting our own expectations, leaving us trapped in a cycle of trying to measure up. In his short book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, based on a sermon

[00:23:09] from 1 Corinthians 3, Tim Keller explains how the gospel offers a completely different foundation for our identity, one that's free from insecurity and pride and that allows us to rest in God's complete acceptance. This month, as thanks for your gift to help Gospel & Life spread the transforming love of Christ with more people, we'll send you two English copies of The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness and one Spanish copy that you can share with a Spanish speaker in your life. Request your copies today at

[00:23:38] gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Trust God's Word. Verse 17, he says, Daniel answered the king, you may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king. Now, that way, it's easy to go right by that. There is a lot more in there than it looks. You may keep your gifts for yourself. Now, don't forget what happened.

[00:24:08] He had said, whoever is wise enough to interpret this, I'll give purple robe, gold chain, third ruler in the kingdom. And when he turns him down, he's not just being humble. He's not saying, oh, no, no, no. What he's actually doing is he's actually saying, he's making a statement. If you were here two weeks ago, when he speaks to, in Daniel chapter 2, when he speaks to Nebuchadnezzar, he says there what he implies here, and that's this. He says, the reason I don't want any reward is because what I'm about to tell

[00:24:38] you is not human wisdom. What I'm about to tell you is not the product of my research. It's not the product of my analysis. It's not the product of my insight. This is, what I'm about to tell you is the word of God. This is revelation from God. This is propositional revelation from God. And what Daniel's actually saying all through the book of Daniel, haven't you noticed, every time something happens it's puzzling. They wheel in the world's experts.

[00:25:08] It's just like CNN. Every time something happens in come the PhDs, in come the sociologists and the psychologists and the experts and the policy planners. They wheel them in. The enchanters, the astrologers and the diviners. And they can't read the writing. They don't know what it means. Now somebody's trying to say, and what Daniel's saying is the word of God, not worldly wisdom, is where you have to start. If you want to get to the bottom of things. It's the only way you're ever going to really find significance. Now somebody's going to say, and rightly

[00:25:37] so, wait a minute, you can't take our scientists and compare them to astrologers and diviners and enchanters. That was just superstition. This is science now. But now listen, basically, when it comes to finding your significance, when it comes to dealing with the things, the main thing in our lives, the main thing culture's after, the main

[00:26:07] thing therapy's after, the stuff that Ernest Becker's talking about, modern worldly wisdom is absolutely not a bit more helpful than ancient worldly wisdom. What do I mean? My perfect example of this, my favorite example, is, my favorite example of this is the place in Becky Pippert's book, where she was in a counseling psychology course at Harvard. And that course was, there's one place where there was a wonderful case study being done by the

[00:26:36] professor in which it was trying to show that a particular man, his hatred for his mother, had filled him with both bitterness and guilt, and had pretty much ruined his life. And they were looking at how both his guilt and his bitterness had basically ruined his marriage and ruined everything in his life. And when he was all done, I think it was Becky herself who put up her hand and said, well, how do you help this guy actually forgive his mother and get over his guilt? And the professor looked at her and smiled and said, well, if you're looking for forgiving heart, you can't look in the psychology department,

[00:27:07] you've got to find some other department, he suggested at the divinity school. Well, all the psychology students raised their hand, they were very upset about this. They said, it was very simple. Of course you can help them. First of all, you tell them, look, okay, you're mad at your mother, but everybody's mad at their mother. That doesn't make you a bad person. And then the second thing you say is you've got to forgive. It's right to forgive. You know, and you know what? He wouldn't, he wouldn't,

[00:27:36] the professor would not back down because he was actually agreeing with Daniel. What he was trying to say, the minute you say you're not bad, you're out of the realm of science. Science cannot tell you anything but what it is. It can never say what it ought to be. Science can describe. The minute you say this is good and this is bad, that's not science. We don't have a little test that tells you, oh, it's 13% good. As soon as you say ought,

[00:28:06] as soon as you say right and wrong, as soon as you say you're a good person, as soon as you say you're a worthwhile, significant human being, you are out of the realm of science. You're all sorts of things about the nature of the universe and the nature of things and the meaning of persons and the reason for human life and all sorts of moral assumptions. He would not back down. What he's really trying to say is exactly what Daniel's trying to say. If you want to figure out whether you're

[00:28:36] significant, if you want to get to the bottom of things, worldly wisdom cannot help you. Science can't help you any more than astrology can help you. The only way to know that you're significant is to find out whether or not you were created. If you're an accident, you're not significant. You're pointless. And if you were created, then you have to go and find out from the creator. And what Daniel is saying is, he says to Nebuchadnezzar, he says to Belshazzar, he says to you, I want you to realize what I'm about to tell you is the word of God. You need the word of God. You need to go to the Bible.

[00:29:05] You need to go to the word of the prophets and the apostles cannot possibly ever deal with the issue of significance. Forget your seminars. Forget mystical meditation. Forget all the other things you're trying to do. You're going to have to go to the word of God. That's what he's saying. And by the way, before we go on to the second lesson here, some of you say, no, wait a minute. I learned in college that the Bible's a

[00:29:35] lot of legends and there's all these historical inaccuracies. It's pretty interesting to me and very ironic that Belshazzar himself is a cautionary tale for Religion 101 classes. You know, for years and years and years and years people taught in Religion 101 classes that this Daniel 5 is a perfect example of why you can't trust the Bible. We know that after Nebuchadnezzar there were three other kings of Babylon and the last king of Babylon before Cyrus

[00:30:05] and the Medes and the Persians conquered Babylon was a man named Nabonidus. He was the third and last king in the Babylonian line. And therefore this Belshazzar there was no such thing as Belshazzar and he was not the king of Babylon. None of this could have happened. This is a legend. These guys don't know what they're talking. You can't trust the Bible. And I just think about how many little college freshmen over the years listened to those and you know they wanted to have sex anyway so they said hey they said you know you can't

[00:30:35] really trust everything in the Bible there's good things in there like love thy neighbor but there's a lot of things we don't like so they let it go. And then not too long ago they dug up an inscription they found out something. Nabonidus moved out into the desert and left Babylon under the regency of his son Belshazzar and that's the reason why when Belshazzar says to Daniel I'll make you third highest ruler in the country that's all the higher he could make somebody

[00:31:06] and that means that the chapter the writer of Daniel knew a whole lot more about the history of ancient Babylon and what happened there than modern historians you know oh well we can't trust the Bible and so I'm going to completely change the basis of my life and then whoops somebody digs up an inscription let me give you a suggestion for why you ought to at least give it a shot to trust the Bible Daniel is telling us unless you take the Bible seriously and take it completely and trust it

[00:31:36] and submit to it even those parts that you don't like you can't have a God who is not an idol of your own making you can either have the Bible and then you know you have a God who can contradict you and I've heard me say this before but let me show you in this context if you say there's some things in here I just don't believe I don't believe in a God who would do that I don't believe in that so I believe this part and I don't believe this part in other words here's my question how would you ever know whether you've got

[00:32:06] a real God if how do you know you don't just have an idol if you're able to make God into what you want isn't that an idol how can you have a personal God who's got a living personal God a living self who can sometimes make you mad if you're in a marriage with somebody who never makes you mad you don't know who that person is yet that person isn't a real person to you that person is not showing you him or herself so the first thing you've got to do do you want a living God or an idol

[00:32:36] do you want to get to the bottom of things do you ever want to find your significance go to the word Daniel says I don't want your reward because what I'm about to tell you is the word of God and that's what you need number two the second thing you've got to do is you got to come to grips with pride look at verse 22 what was the whole problem with Belshazzar what was the whole problem with Nebuchadnezzar pride let me be practical about this too over the

[00:33:22] if somebody tells you oh God loves you and he's been so gracious to you and you don't understand sin why should he be moved if you hear

[00:33:52] what Daniel says every chapter is you got to look at pride if you want to understand what's wrong with you you say well what is pride I'm not a proud person well he even defines it if you want to

[00:34:22] is driven away until he acknowledged the most high God sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets them over anyone he wishes now you want to know what pride is this is what he told Nebuchadnezzar and what he's telling Belshazzar this is pride pride is simply not seeing that absolutely everything you have and everything you are is a gift of grace that the reason you're Nebuchadnezzar or the reason you're the CEO or the reason you've accomplished whatever you've accomplished it's sheer grace of

[00:35:03] that and here's what I said insignificance well isn't that the same thing no it's not the reason that Nebuchadnezzar struggled with insignificance the reason I

[00:35:33] everything you have in your life is grace of God you're going to be trying to earn it you're going to prove yourself you're to accomplish it and as a result you're going to always be filled with a sense of your insignificance filled with a fear that you're not living up and needing to push other people down to prove to yourself and to others that you are significant the root of the sense of insignificance is pride pride is the root of it all that's what it's saying until you get an understanding of that read C.S. Lewis' book mere Christianity just

[00:36:03] this chapter on the great sin I don't know how many people I've known that have become Christians finally because they understood that chapter sin is the root of all inferiority pardon me pride is the root of inferiority because it's self absorbed with how do I look and it's the root of superiority pride is the root of worry you're not worried unless you're sure how life ought to go pride is the root of all your bitterness why because you're only bitter against somebody if you say I would never do something like

[00:36:33] that pride is the root of even your unresolved guilt why because when somebody says don't you see you shouldn't yourself because you want to earn it because you don't want charity because even though you didn't earn it you should have pride is the basis for nationalism and war pride is the basis for tribalism and

[00:37:02] racism pride is the reason in our postmodern world for sophisticated boredom and cynicism why do you think so many people are bored and sophisticated because they why do you think Jesus Christ says he who humbles himself will be exalted he who exalts himself will be humbled so the second lesson is pride the third lesson is first lesson is go to the word you'll never deal with your insignificance otherwise the second lesson is figure out

[00:37:32] the fact that pride is the root of your problem and the last thing is know the difference between religion and goblets in and they drink wine from God's goblets toasting other gods and you say well that's really weird but I don't think I'm ever going to do anything like that that sounds like terrible sacrilege and blasphemy but not likely one of my sins oh yeah let me

[00:38:02] tell you something I remember very very distinctly a guy that when I was in college he professed and maybe he was going to become a Christian because he was really a wild man and everybody on campus knew he was a wild man and he was particularly bad in the area of sex not just that he was sexually active that wasn't the most interesting thing but what he would do is he would seduce women and as soon as he had he

[00:38:32] dropped them he lost all interest in them and he was well known for being a heart breaker and being cruel and sexually licentious and he said he was going to become a Christian and it looked like he did because he certainly stopped all that behavior but we noticed that in every Bible study he had to be right we noticed that he had to be elected the you know an officer in the fellowship we noticed that when he was in any conversation with a non Christian where he was trying to tell them why the Bible was right and why Jesus was right and

[00:39:18] so

[00:39:54] religious recognize the difference between religion and true faith now lastly and very quickly actually what's the handwriting on the wall here's what it

[00:40:25] religious and we start to go to the Bible and clean up our lives that we're not just toasting the same old gods using religious rituals and artifacts and so forth so we

[00:40:56] God is coming and he's going to judge you and you know you you guys think you've had your fun but you've been in power and you've made us feel little you know we believers but you're going to get yours and that's how we're supposed to relate now you know what the fact is that Jesus Christ completely reinterprets but in the perfect and ultimate way this passage in the book out

[00:41:26] and he says preach grace heal the sick feed the hungry cast out demons and they come back and they're amazed that through Jesus Christ's power lives are changing people are being fed people who are under the power of demonic idols in their life now are being liberated and right cast

[00:41:56] out demons by the finger of God you know the kingdom of God is at hand and Earl Ellis who is a very excellent commentator a great biblical scholar in his commentary on Luke says this he says the lordship of Satan and of death yields to the in breaking powers of the new age yet just as King Belshazzar's guests continued to feast unaware that his kingdom had fallen and his doom had been sealed so the present age is unaware that Satan's reign is broken it cannot read

[00:42:26] what has been written for Luke tells us the mission of the church to make the kingdom visible through feeding the hungry through changed lives through the preaching of grace is now the writing on the wall it's only a token it's only a minute revelation of the kingdom at the glorious coming of Jesus but we Christians must explain that writing on the wall that the kingdom of God is impending you see what Ellis says Jesus is saying

[00:42:55] it's the only place that Jesus ever uses the term finger of God it's the only place that the finger of God is ever used in the New Testament it's clearly a reference back to one of the only places you even see it in the Old Testament and here's what Jesus is saying the writing is on the wall but the writing is my people I have created a community in which people's lives are being changed I've created a community in which they are not subject to insignificance anymore so they're not hurting each other they're not trampling on each other they're loving each other and they're loving

[00:43:35] it's a message of hope but you know what that means Christian friends are you legible I mean are you any different and are you willing if you are legible are we different enough that we really are a sign of the coming kingdom that we're so different because we now know that we're significant in Christ and that frees us to serve us other people is your life different enough so

[00:44:08] now somebody says are you legible how can anybody be that different here's why because don't you understand that our king is different than the world's kings our king gave up his glory he emptied himself of his glory on the cross he became completely insignificant he was he was his father turned away from him he ignored him he sent him into the darkness Jesus Christ gave up his glory unlike the the kings of the world so that you and I

[00:44:37] by receiving him in faith could have the glory of God God now loves us and as a result the kingdom is a party that will make that party look like nothing the kingdom isn't a frantic party it's a feast of the kingdom and Jesus Christ says are you legible can the world see that my kingdom is coming because you're the handwriting on the wall can they see that and are you Christian friends gutsy enough than to explain it to them to say this is what this means this is what my

[00:45:07] life means that the kingdom is coming how much better is that than saying wipe that smile off your face let's pray our father we ask that you would show us how to understand what's going on in the world and secondly how to avoid what's happening in the world through the word of God through the humbling of our pride and through the avoidance of religion and the embrace of real gospel faith but then thirdly help us

[00:45:37] to so take this into our love but a handwriting of hope not handwriting of condemnation let us be so different that the world will give up its revelry and make you Lord Jesus the

[00:46:19] that we've translated into five additional languages through our translation initiative the global reach project you can find and listen to the translated version of this

[00:46:49] church